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Separate but equal is still segregation in the US, so I assume separate and unequalwould be too, wouldn’t you?

As you may know, the Huntsville City Schools has been fighting desegregation for 54 years.

Magnet schools were one compromise, and New Century Technology High School is a magnet STEM high school that has been around for nearly a decade. Like a bastard step-child, it got shuffled from the Research Park, which has no neighborhood near it, when Columbia High’s population increased. Then it went to Robert E. Lee Senior High, which got a new campus about 5 years ago. But it is, shall we say, on the wrong side of the tracks.

In spite of very low disciplinary problems, a robotics team who has gone to international competitions, and so on, New Century never worked as a magnet school because it was housed on the same campus as a predominantly black school, and, well, you can’t be so blatant as to have segregated bathrooms and lunch counters.

Even in Huntsville.

Let’s look at some pictures of the STEM magnetic high school in Huntsville.

Now we will look at the new Grissom. (Photos by Bob Gathany, here used for educational purposes.)

I’m really puzzled about these very, very expensive patient dummies.
If HCS is going to have these dummies, they belong at the STEM magnet.

Then there are 3D printers. Is there a real need for three of them?

Robotics belongs at the STEM magnet. But why would anyone go to the magnet (desegregation, remember?) if they have this down the street:

It goes on and on and on. Consider, if you will, the “Cyber Cafe” and “media center.”

I know I’m an old lady, but where are the books? I know library is a forbidden term in the educational realm, I get that, but when I use USPS “media mail,” I’m mailing books.

And don’t high schools run kids out 15 minutes after day’s end? So when will they visit the Cyber Cafe? I don’t even want to think about the cafe part, but drinks and school-issued laptops are probably not the greatest combo on the menu.